Thursday, January 27, 2005

IDPs, Getting Used to a New Term

I will expand on this soon but you might as well get used to a new legal term for the residents of Jewish communities in Gaza and Northern Samaria who are scheduled to be expelled from their homes and to have their farms, hothouses, schools, cemeteries and other social institutions either destroyed or physically removed from thm.

It's IDPs which means Internal Displaced Persons.

Yes, there actually is a category like that and even the United Nations utilizes it. Here's how it is described by the Brookings Institute which adminsiters an IDP project:

Over the past decade, tens of millions of people have been forced from their homes by armed conflict, internal strife, and systematic violations of human rights but remain within the borders of their own countries.

The Project on Internal Displacement was created to promote a more effective national, regional and international response to this global problem and to support the work of the Representative to the UN Secretary-General in carrying out the responsibilities of his mandate. The Project is co-directed by Walter Kהlin, the newly appointed Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, and Roberta Cohen, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

I'm not sure I understand the meaning of the quotation marks.They fit someone like Ephraim Sneh, who is indeed a "leftist" (he was responsible for the expulsion in South Mount Hebron in the winter of 2000). Benny Begin is 10 times more humanist than him.

I assume you were referring to someone like me, a leftist without quotation marks. Indeed, I am already active against the rise of Sne's view which you mentioned.

I have no equivalent leftist reaction in the case of you settlers, because dismantling the settlements is legal , and is everything but expulsion of citizens out of their country (Sneh's triangle plan) . On the contrary, it is a case of returning citizens from a territory which is outside their country's borders back to their country.

Therefore, the relevant leftist reaction is making sure that excessive violence is not used against the settlers, hopefully in Shilo too. One particularly relevant concern is the issue of administrative detention. In the past, The Association for Civil Rights has defended right wing activists who were put under such detention, and I'm sure they will do so in the future. BTW, tear gas and steel cages will be legitimate, even if we'll be emotionally blackmailed with "How dare you spray Jews with gas" (these people were silent when I was sprayed with tear gas, but luckily I didn't compare my misfortune to the gas chambers...) . Another concern is to help people in their new homes, including compensation and psychological assistance.I also opposed the proposed disengagement law's draconian 5 year imprisonemt clause.And if it were up to me, right wing soldier-refuseniks would not be imprisoned.

So your comment was somehwat misinformed. Furthermore, universal concern for human rights is (unfortunately!) only a leftist policy in Israel (remember, Sneh is not leftist, neither is Shimon Peres) , unlike other states where human rights are part of the consensus. Benny Begin is an almost unique exception.

The only case in which I could have an equivalent reaction towards your case would occur if organized settlers came forward with the request to stay in their homes as Palestinian citizens in the Palestinian state. Even in that case, my support would be based on political and pragmatic grounds, not on legal grounds, since the settlements were built by force, unlike Taibe and Um-El-Fahem. I believe that you personally had the option to advance this cause in the last decade (in connection to Yossi Alpher). I never heard about efforts made by you in that direction. Let me draw the reasonable conclusion.

Ofer's comment, I think, was supposed to be posted at the Ha'Aretz entry but nevermind.

The point is that the Jewish communities in Yesha are very legal, they were built on land that not only we Jews know is our homeland but that the world decided should be the territory of a reconstituted Jewish home.The word "Arabs" never appears in any of the Mandate diplomacy or decisions and so, this was intended to be the Jewish state, including in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

Once a "Palestine" is to be set up, can we then expect that all Arabs in Israel will move there so as toreduce conflict? If not, on what basis do they remain in Israel? On the fact that we Jews don't normally go around killing Arabs to make them feel uncomfortable like they do in Yesha?

If "Leftist" means to be irrational, immoral and maybe even wrong, well each chooses his own reality.

But this is hardly a response to my legal (and moral) claims. Can a modern democratic state thro its citizens out on ethnic grounds?

You seem to be claiming that Jews cannot live safely in the West Bank or Gaza strip in a Palestinian state. That is debatable. I can certainly admit that as time goes by, our occupation is creating more hatred towards Israelis in general (in a similar manner to the hatred created by suicide bombings).

Why didn't you and your friends from Yesh"a act much sooner, years ago, to advance this option? Why haven't you asked Begin and Shamir (and Peres) to grant the Palestinians Israeli citizenship (*), enabling you to stay in Shiloh ? (in that case Shiloh could have been more legitimate than Ramat Aviv)

And if separation is the solution (not mine!), why divide the cake 78-22 ? why not 50-50 ? After all, both populations are almost equal, with the Palestinian side growing faster.

I gave you clear examples of the genuine left's universal concern for human rights. I would be happy to see an example from you. What have you or your friends done to advance universal cause of human rights?

(*) The yesh"a council's plan to grant "citizenship" to Palestinians is irrelevant, since it is not based on the principle of "one citizen one vote"

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.